By Stacey Bodger
ROTORUA - An Otorohanga florist and five Tauranga floral-design students spent an entire day creating a 15m centrepiece for the Apec senior officials' meeting.
Seven rounds of rimu and more than 500 stems were used to create a flowing design based around Bay of Plenty culture and the colour
red, in keeping with the "cultured" theme of the Rotorua meeting.
A contingent of 750 delegates are in the second week of workshops which make up the final senior officials' meeting before Apec leaders meet in Auckland next month.
Heather Hammond, a judge, teacher and demonstrator for the New Zealand Floral Art Society, said she had spent months designing the arrangement but had only a day to put it together at the Rotorua Convention Centre.
The five Bay of Plenty Polytechnic students whose help she enlisted had never worked on a floral design of such concept or magnitude.
Mrs Hammond based the design around rimu - New Zealand red pine - and accentuated the Bay of Plenty cultural aspects using flax and supplejack, a vine-like plant which wound along the display.
She used New Zealand export flowers like red leucadendrons and cymbidium orchids, grown in Katikati, near Tauranga.
To represent other Asia and Pacific countries, she incorporated Washingtonia palm spathes and anthurium, imported from Mauritius.
The project was a thrill, said Mrs Hammond. Although she was used to filling international stages with masses of flowers, it was the biggest single piece she had undertaken.
"It's certainly an effort, but the fresh approach of the students has been so inspiring."
Meanwhile the beauty of Lake Rotoiti wowed 50 senior Apec delegates arriving at a retreat yesterday at Okawa Bay Lake Resort, which backs on to the lake.
The retreat, attended only by senior officials from the 21 Apec economies, was to set the scene for the officials' meeting proper, which begins in Rotorua today.
Apec Taskforce conference coordinator Jane Anderson said the purpose of yesterday's retreat was to allow the core senior officials to meet in a more relaxed atmosphere than the conference venues in central Rotorua.
